Pilot program to help some professionals buy homes

RALEIGH, NC (WWAY) -- If you work in a community, you should be able to live in that community. That was the message in Raleigh this morning.

State legislators discussed a new Workforce Housing pilot program. The program will help low-income employees buy a home. Police officers, firefighters, teachers and nurses are some professions eligible for the pilot program.

Brunswick County's Association of Homeowners director Ben Styers says buying a home should be an option for everyone.

"People do want to have part of their livelihood that they can see," Styers said. "It's a piece of what I work for: my home. They're proud of that. This program will allow them to work around some of the issues that are keeping people from buying homes."

The program will try to help homebuyers with everything from assistance with down payments to home renovations. It's available to those looking to buy homes in Wilmington, Asheville and Raleigh.

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The Workforce Housing Program cited in this story is all about educating consumers on existing housing programs that can help them become homeowners. These programs are often hard to find and even harder to understand, so we've attempted to make it easier through our website www.homes4nc.org and REALTORS who are trained as Workforce Housing Specialists.

We've highlighted the plight of critical workers -- like police, firefighters and teachers -- to dispel myths about who can and cannot afford housing in our communities.

In order to have a strong, vibrant community, we need to provide homeownership opportunities to the workers who make it a great place to live. Our state's economic strength depends on it.

"In order to have a strong, vibrant community, we need to provide homeownership opportunities to the workers who make it a great place to live."

The only person who can provide a "home ownership opportunity" is the person themselves, by managing their own finances. You can't help a person afford anything, unless you're going to help them pay the mortgage every month.

I'd say that the make-up of your board of directors says it all - they're almost exclusively realtors, only interested in doing all they can to sell homes.....even to people who can't afford them. ("Hey, once I get my commission, what the heck do I care if the dummy gets foreclosed six months later?")

What a scam. It's about as believable as a website set up by auto mecahnics recommending a semi-annual tune-up.

While I do think that firefighters, police, teachers and nurses are a very important part of the community I don't realize understand the need for this program.

There are a lot of subdivisions, established and new, with very affordable nice homes. In Wilmington, Leland and Hampstead you can get a very nice 3 bedroom/2 bath house for under $200,000!

The other thing I don't get is grouping nurses in there. RNs make outstanding salaries all over the country! I'm not sure what the pay is here in town but most RNs I know make anywhere from $50K to over $100K depending where they live and if they are hospital based, in a doctor's office or in a 9-5 managerial position.

"Brunswick County's Association of Homeowners director Ben Styers says buying a home should be an option for everyone."

That's the exact same mentality that got this nation into the housing nightmare of the last two years, that still continues today.

Go ahead and help them with the down payment...but when the bills come due and they can't pay, they'll be just another foreclosure statistic. I don't care if they're police, firemen, or nurses; if they can't afford a house, they can't afford a house!

HUD, as in Housing and Urban Development, has had such a program for years. Someone like a Fireman, Teacher, or Police Officer can buy a HUD owned home in the community where they live.

IN many cases, the down payment is $100 and they have a 203K loan program which allows the buyer to finance the purchase price and renovation costs.

Why oh Why is our state government always the last to know about existing programs and the first to try to take credit for something that existed long before the idea enters their brain? Is Al Gore advising them on his new toy, the internet?

And, unlike the state's pilot program, the prospective home buyer is not limited to Wilmington, Raleigh, or Asheville.

I'm not against the using of funds to help people who are working and those especially who are helping the community through their work (nurses, firefighters, teachers, officers), but I do find it sad that the people who do these jobs even need this assistance. These should be good paying jobs! It seems that this program, which will likely use tax money to fund, will mainly benefit state/local government workers, who are paid with tax money. Why not just give these people more pay for their valuable services so they can afford a nice house and be able to put food on the table? Higher wage also means more tax revenue for the state, of course this depends on how they tax the benefit this program offers these people.

Why, first respondent, be so negative about this program? Did you even look at the website? It looks to me from the website Homes4NC that it will help plenty of people in NC. "Workforce Housing aims at satisfying the housing needs of family households earning 50% to 120% of area median household income (AMI) in a given MSA. Ideally, Workforce Housing aims at providing for ownership of single-family homes priced and financed in 30-year fixed-rate monthly terms equal to approximately 15% to 30% of median household income within a given MSA." I think it's a great idea and I'm glad someone is doing it.

A select few? Try tens of thousands. The people in these jobs are providing a valuable sevice to the community and the taxpayers. These people are also often underpaid. Why shouldn't they get something back from the state? I guess you'd prefer to dump more money on free healthcare and foodstamps for people who don't pay taxes and take more from the community than they will ever give back.

I am disabled. You people make us sound like we are less than human. Thank God for Social Services and other programs that help us exist. I'm not riding around in a new or fairly new vehicle like I see parked at some of these housing developments. What's that old saying,"welfare cadillac." Remember vets. Plus 'ole "homie" must have made a good deal last night to be driving a Bemmer today.

This is a program I could support putting tax dollars towards. I understand with the current state of the economy that government jobs are looking more desirable than ever, but I am in complete agreement that these workers deserve some type of help to get them into a home in the communities that they do so much for.